Bill Kaczor, “Gov. Crist signs cable TV bill but asks for tighter enforcement,” South-Florida Sun Sentinel (via Associated Press), May 18, 2007.
Gov. Crist signed the video franchise bill that was passed during the legislative session. Several public interest and consumer organizations had asked Crist to veto the bill.
An update on our earlier coverage of freedom of information in the 2007 legislative session:
Michael C. Bender, “Bills aim to thwart ID theft,” Palm Beach Post, May 13, 2007.
The article has a summary of the bills relating to public records that passed the legislature this session. The legislature passed 25 bills relating to public records — 24 of which passed unanimously — three of which strengthen the state’s Sunshine Laws, and the rest of which contain various exemptions. The First Amendment Foundation, the state’s freedom of information watchdog group, characterized the exemptions as “pretty justifiable”. Several of the new exemptions are for personal information, such as Social Security numbers.
We previously wrote about the video franchise legislation considered in this year’s session in Tallahassee. Well, the bill passed, with provisions that weren’t good, so now public interest groups are asking Gov. Crist to veto the bill.
John Kennedy, “Consumer Groups Want Plug Pulled on Cable Bill,” Orlando Sentinel blog: Central Florida Political Pulse, May 8, 2007.
The groups behind the veto effort are Florida PIRG, Tampa Bay Community Network, Free Press, and Consumer’s Union. Here’s the press release from Free Press.
Gov. Crist has until May 18 to sign or veto the bill, or it will pass into law without his signature.
Update: There’s also an AP story which has been picked up by outlets across Florida (here it is in the Gainesville Sun). The Political Whore at Creative Loafing Tampa also has a post.
Update 2: The Palm Beach Post has an editorial urging a veto.
Update: The St. Petersburg Times is also calling for a veto.
Competition is only a smoke screen to rationalize the industry’s mad dash to win the most lucrative markets. … This is a terrible bill, and the governor should veto it.
Update: Florida Consumer Action Network is now urging a veto. The Consumer Federation of the Southeast, Consumer Federation of America, and ACORN have also joined the bandwagon since the initial post.
Update: Henry Troxler at the St. Petersburg Times has a column in which he hopes Gov. Crist will veto the bill.
Update: The Florida Media Project, the Alliance for Community Media, and The Education Channel are all supporting a veto, as are the Florida League of Cities and the Florida Chapter of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisers. The U.S. Department of Justice, on the other hand, is supporting the bill, as part of the department’s “competition advocacy” (relating to antitrust law). The Orlando Sentinel has an editorial endorsing a veto.
In totally unrelated news, BellSouth spent more on lobbying than anyone else during the legislative session, more than $1 million — and that doesn’t even include the last month of the session, for which data are not yet available. The Miami Herald article calls the cable bill “the biggest special-interest food fight” of the session.
A Sun editorial has a follow-up to the new psuedo-trademark rights I wrote about earlier this month:
“Counterfeit rockers,” editorial, Gainesville Sun, April 29, 2007.
The Legislature has passed a bill to make it illegal for a band to bill itself as a well known oldie group unless at least one current member actually did play in the original group.
“It’s really a consumer rip-off protection,” Jon “Bowzer” Bauman, chair of the Truth in Music Committee of The Vocal Group Hall of Fame Foundation, and a one-time member of the 1970s group Sha Na Na told reporters. Apparently, aging boomers with failing eyesight and tin ears are being duped by rockers who claim to be who they are not. Clearly this is a case for the rock police (not to be confused, of course, with the original rock band The Police).
Just how dire is this threat to rock integrity?
Update 04-17: This story is on Linux.com! Microsoft’s ‘Men in Black’ kill Florida open standards legislation. It was linked to on Slashdot as well.
Update 2: Front page of Digg, too (891 diggs at the moment).
Background: Gavin and Eldo did a lot of investigative work to find out about SB1974 and HB1557 which aim to recreate a permanent Agency for Enterprise Information Technology within the Governor’s office. For a short while, the Senate bill contained language introduced by Rep. Ed Homan (R-60) which would have mandated state agencies to create and exchange documents using open formats. It was summarily removed by a subsequent amendment. We’ve created a comprehensive wiki page about the issue if you want to know more.
Microsoft lobbyists: We’ve since learned that after Rep. Ed Homan introduced the open standards language, Microsoft lobbyists showed up at his office the very next day. We also obtained the anti-ODF document (PDF) that the lobbyists left for Rep. Homan.
The document contains many interesting points. To quote a mailing list post by Gavin,
The text of the amendment did not propose to standardize on ODF (as the document claims). In fact, the document claims we should not mandate a standard on any file format — but no one is trying to do that. The goal is require that the state’s data is not locked up in proprietary formats. If the data is stored in non-proprietary formats, then anyone will be able to implement it, INCREASING choice (contrary to the claim of the document).
The document notes that OpenXML is likely to get ISO certified, but we don’t know whether that will happen or not. As expected, the document does not detail Microsoft’s absolutely awful record with interoperability — and how they have, as a documented business strategy, specifically pursued the DEMOLITION of interoperability (embrace and extend).
If OpenXML meets the requirements in the amendment, then I have no problem whatever with the state using OpenXML. But the document distracts us from the debate about whether those requirements are good (they are). The real question is: why shouldn’t OpenXML agree to meet these basic standards that will ensure long-term interoperability? Why is Microsoft attacking these basic standards rather than promising that its software will meet them?
It’s too late to get open standards language back into this bill for this legislative session, but we’ll be working hard next time for open standards in Florida.
Recent news stories on proposals to extend trademark-like protections to company names and the names of musical acts.
Florida Free Culture is a student group at the University of Florida. Our mission is:
We are named for Lawrence Lessig's book, Free Culture, and are a chapter of FreeCulture.org.
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